The Girl Who Waited

This isn't fair. You're turning me into you.

The Girl Who Waited is probably my favorite from Series 6. What's also interesting is that it is actually a Doctor-lite story as well.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory land in a hospital facility where normal time is observed but an alternate sped up timeline is also created for the victims of a plague on the planet. The victims are allowed to live what feels like long lives in the span of about a day. Amy is accidentally trapped in a sped up timeline and when the Doctor and Rory go to get her, they overshoot and end up meeting an Amy that has waited thirty-six years for them. She has become angry and bitter. But she agrees to help save young Amy if they will save her too. Young Amy is pulled forward into old Amy's timestream but knocked out in the run back to the TARDIS. Rory brings her in but the Doctor locks old Amy out. He tells Rory that the two Amy's are a paradox and he must choose which one he can save. Old Amy begs him to not let her in and she gives herself over to the sedation robots.

There is so much to enjoy with this episode. It is emotional but not in an overly schmaltzy way. You feel the genuine pain that old Amy has felt in being alone for so long and you sympathize with her in that anger as well as her fear that to rescue her younger self might cause her older self to cease to exist. You also sympathize with Rory who loves Amy no matter what version but must choose to let one die in the end.

Although well structured so that you don't really notice it, it is a good thing that this is a Doctor-lite episode. I enjoy the Eleventh Doctor's whimsy as well as the contrasting seriousness he brings, but in those poignant moments between Amy and Rory, it was important that they be given space and to have the Doctor and his whimsy removed aided in keeping the tone right with it's somber edge.

All the actors did a very good job in this one. Of course, it was a very small cast as besides the main three there was only the central computer (voiced by Imelda Staunton), the robots and the holographic receptionist; none of which had as much screen time and Amy and Rory or even the Doctor. But it was Amy and Rory that carried this episode and they did an excellent job.

I actually did watch this episode again not that long ago and I enjoyed it as much as the first time I watched it. I'd happily go and watch it again at any time.

Overall personal score: 5 out of 5